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June 8 — The recently proposed labor agreement for about 39,000 Verizon Communications Inc.
wireline workers on the East Coast stands to boost chances to organize thousands
of workers within the telecommunications giant's wireless business, union officials
and university professors told Bloomberg BNA.

“This has to be a major step for organizing. The union is reaching a workplace it
has wanted,” said Jeffrey Keefe, a professor emeritus at the Rutgers School of Management
and Labor Relations. “Wireless has been growing and Verizon is the largest wireless
company in the country. That's where they make much of their money, and I'm sure the
union will try to organize more.”

If ratified, the proposed deal would replace 27 expired collective bargaining agreements
in nine Eastern states and the District of Columbia for between 36,000 and 39,000
workers represented by the Communications Workers of America and the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (103 DLR AA-1, 5/27/16).

The proposal also includes a first labor contract for about 70 Verizon Wireless retail
store workers in six stores in Brooklyn, N.Y., and one in Everett, Mass. The workers
represent a tiny fraction of Verizon Wireless' overall national workforce, company
spokesman Richard Young told Bloomberg BNA June 6.

Flexible scheduling, job security provisions and guaranteeing a certain amount of
wages are some of the details in the proposed contract for the Verizon Wireless retail
workers who voted for CWA representation in 2014 (94 DLR A-11, 5/15/14).

Before the recently proposed labor pact, the CWA and Verizon were slow to make progress
on a first contract for the store workers. The lack of a contract also has been something
of a hiccup in the CWA's overall effort to organize Verizon Wireless workers.

Company and Unions on Separate Lines

A ratified contract also would prove to be one of the union's first successes in a
campaign that has had a lukewarm response from a company that lauds its largely union-free
wireless business.

“We strongly believe Verizon Wireless remains the nation’s premier wireless provider
because of the good work and dedication of our employees who have overwhelmingly chosen
not to have union representation,” Young said in a written statement. “From our perspective,
outside involvement is unnecessary and the success of this business unit and its workforce
is indicative of that position.”

The CWA has been trying to diversify its reach beyond its large representation of
wireline workers at Verizon Inc., which includes cable splicers and call center workers.
Since at least 2000, the CWA and IBEW have been trying to organize Verizon Wireless
employees (163 DLR AA-1, 8/22/00).

Union officials have said the company has historically resisted its efforts to grow
a foothold in one of Verizon's most profitable and evolving business segments.

“Wireless is a big business, and we say the workers deserve to have a voice,” CWA
spokeswoman Candice Johnson told Bloomberg BNA June 1.

In addition to the 70 retail workers, the CWA represents about 50 technicians at a
Verizon Wireless bargaining unit in New York, where workers have had a collective
bargaining contract since the pre-Verizon days when it was NYNEX Mobile.

The IBEW does not represent Verizon Wireless workers, but the union is poised to make
new connections, adding to its representation of technicians and call center workers
at Verizon's wireline business.

“When an employee realizes that they may have a voice in their working conditions,
wages and benefits they feel empowered to discuss the options,” Carmella L Thomas,
IBEW's director of professional and industrial organizing, wrote in an e-mail. “Being
fearful when others in their field have accomplished those efforts makes them feel
confident that they could possibly achieve the same.”

Union's Spotty Reception in Wireless Industry

As for the CWA, Verizon Wireless is just part of the union's effort to organize the
nation's wireless workforce.

The union also has been trying to organize workers at T-Mobile USA Inc. since at least
2008, an effort that has faced stiff resistance from the U.S. subsidiary of German
wireless company Deutsche Telekom (222 DLR A-6, 11/20/09). The union's only foothold in the T-Mobile network came with representation of workers
in a Harlem, N.Y., retail store for subsidiary Metro PCS.

“To keep costs in line with competitors,”
all companies “should either be unionized or non-unionized,”
he said. “The reason is union shops would more than likely cost more to the customer.
This makes the union shop less competitive as they compete with lower cost companies.”

The organizing campaign also follows some high-profile work stoppages and other labor
battles within the telecom industry. Such history, which includes the six-week work
stoppage by East Coast workers, could fuel the company's push against organizing Verizon
Wireless, according to Rosemary Batt, a labor professor at Cornell University's School
of Industrial and Labor Relations.

“The NYNEX strike in 1989 was particularly bitter, and, largely based on that legacy,
Verizon leaders have taken a strong position that they are not going to let the union
move into the new wireless organization, knowing that in time the union would decline
as the wireline market recedes, and that has happened,”
she said.

As for Verizon, Rutger's Keefe said organizing the company's wireless workers has
faced several obstacles. That includes difficulty getting the attention of the wireless
workers, who are spread out geographically and separated from workers in the company's
wireline business.

Failure to Connect to Workers

“It's harder when you have a Verizon Wireless store in a mall or a shopping center,
which means it's harder to have access to the employees,” Keefe said. “That's different
from places like Brooklyn where they can walk up to the storefront on the street and
talk to the employees and picket in front of the store. Once you get into the suburbs
of America, you have mostly stores located in malls and such, and it's tougher to
have a presence to talk with the non-union workers.”

Keefe added that such access restrictions have helped the company maintain a union-free
workplace.

“That makes it easier for management to claim that they should not join the union,”
he said. “Management will give them all the advantages of a union without any dues
or fear of a strike. This is all standard stuff that management has been successful
doing for the last 40 years.”

Some of the hardships are partly because of difficulties of organizing a retail workforce,
which is prone to worker turnover and changing demographics since the last economic
recession, Batt said.

Retail jobs are increasingly being filled by people who are reluctant to chance losing
their jobs as a result of an organizing drive, Batt said. It's very hard, she added,
“when they know they will be up against tremendous opposition by the company and risk
losing their jobs.”

Slow to Dial Up Wireless Workers

The union footprint is a contrast to one of Verizon Wireless's largest competitors,
AT&T Mobility, which has about 40,000 workers represented by the CWA.

The AT&T Inc. subsidiary agreed to a neutrality and card-check organizing campaign
in 2004 (37 DLR A-7, 2/25/13). A card-check agreement allows workers to choose union representation by signing
union authorization cards instead of through the long process for a secret-ballot
election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.

The CWA-IBEW had a similar agreement with Verizon Wireless, which the company declined
to renew when the pact expired in 2004 (163 DLR A-12, 8/24/04). The unions did not organize any new units under the agreement, which was reached
in 2000 as part of a contract settlement between CWA and Verizon.

Former CWA President Larry Cohen told Bloomberg BNA in May 2014 that the efforts failed
because of “the company's relentless anti-union behavior, even including firing union
supporters during organizing drives.”

CWA spokeswoman Johnson echoed that view in an interview with Bloomberg BNA June 1,
saying the company has continued to rebuff organizing efforts within its wireless
business. She said “progress”
on a first contract for the 70 retail workers came on “the final day” of negotiations.

“These talks didn't come until late into the process and they initially didn't want
to discuss anything regarding the wireless workers,” Johnson said.

The proposed contract is applauded by CWA-represented Verizon Wireless workers such
as Mike Tisei, who has worked at the Everett store for about five years. He said guaranteed
pay provisions and the chance to organize more retail workers are some of his bright
spots in the contract.

“What's nice about the contract is that it offers something for leverage to extend
into other stores,”
he told Bloomberg BNA.

First Contract ‘More Than the Usual.'

The proposed contract includes some unusually strong concessions that favor the retail
workers, which shrinks emphasis on commission-based pay rates, Batt said.

“Within a first contract like this, the union was able to identify some issues that
were important to the workers,” she said. “That includes the use of contractors and
also limits on performance-based pay.”

Other details in the proposed Verizon Wireless labor contract include:

Limiting Contractors—The company may not use contractors in Brooklyn or Everett if
they lead to layoffs, part-timing of jobs or downgrading of jobs.

Removing At-Risk Pay—Under this agreement, $2,000 of “performance”
pay in the Brooklyn and Everett stores will be guaranteed and no longer at risk.

Flexible Scheduling—Qualified workers in like titles will have the right to swap
schedules.

Transfers—If the company needs to transfer a worker outside of the Brooklyn or Everett
bargaining unit, the worker will still be covered under the terms and conditions of
this agreement.

Batt said one of the largest gains in the contract includes the guaranteed payment,
which moves away from the industry standard commission-based payments.

“To get some of performance-based pay shifted to a guaranteed pay means they have
their foot in the door to shift away from at-risk pay over time, which is really not
appropriate for low-wage workers,” she said.

Despite such gains, Verizon spokesman Young said the contract will have minimal impact
on the company's wireless business model.

“These new agreements preserve the Company’s rights to exercise broad discretion on
how we treat employees and run the business,” Young said in the written statement.
“As a result of these new agreements, we believe very little will change.”

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